Killer, maintaining innocence, given 45-to-life

Wade McCommons Jr. expressed no remorse for the shooting death of Laurel Teer or a home invasion that left a young girl traumatized.

The alleged leader in the Nine Trey Gangster set of the Bloods street gang blamed lying witnesses, crooked cops and an overzealous prosecution for his conviction. He continued to maintain his innocence during a somewhat rambling statement delivered at his sentencing Monday.

“This case was concocted and the bottom line is that I’m not guilty,” he said.

But McCommons’ statement failed to win sympathy from acting Schenectady County Court Judge Michael Coccoma, who handed him a sentence of 45 years to life in prison: 25 years to life for the second-degree murder of Teer at the Eastern Avenue Deli & Grocery and a consecutive sentence of up to 20 years in jail for strong-arming his way into a Rugby Road residence.

“It’s your violent acts that caused this sentence that I’m about to impose,” he told McCommons. “You have no one else to blame but yourself.”

The sentence was imposed as McCommons faces new allegations that he was trying to hire someone to kill two witnesses in his case during his trial in October. Prosecutor Robert Carney said McCommons took legal documents he received during his trial and passed them to an inmate on another tier at the Schenectady County Jail, so they could be mailed to someone on the outside.

“Some got out,” he said, declining to elaborate on the new charges.

McCommons is facing arraignment on two felony counts of criminal conspiracy to commit second-degree murder and two counts of criminal solicitation. He is also facing a count of criminal contempt for violating a court order prohibiting him from distributing material being used at his trial.

In another strange twist in the case, Coccoma acknowledged that his law clerk received a letter from one of the jurors in the case suggesting a sentence for McCommons. The judge said he did not read the letter due to its content and asked that it be returned.

“I will not take into account letters from a juror and what that juror thinks is appropriate for a sentence,” he said.

Teer was purchasing beer and lottery tickets when McCommons entered the store behind her, brandishing a 9mm Lorcin pistol at the clerk. Teer kicked McCommons in the groin after he pushed up against her and he responded by pistol-whipping her in the head. But as his blow followed through, the gun discharged a single shot into her right temple and out the back of her skull.

McCommons remained out of prison through August 2009. During that time, he racked up more than a dozen parole violations, officials said, ranging from testing positive for marijuana to blowing off a mandatory drug test.

Authorities executed a search warrant of his home on Sept. 11, 2009, uncovering an electronic stun gun, a .40-caliber Glock handgun, a small amount of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. He was handed a 13-month stint in federal prison several days later, after he admitted to possessing drugs and violating the conditions of his home detention.

McCommons was scheduled to be released from federal prison in Kentucky in September 2010 when authorities in Schenectady asked that he be held on the second-degree murder charge. Following a three-week trial in October, jurors deliberated for 101⁄2 hours before convicting McCommons on 13 charges.

Monday’s sentencing was attended by Michael Teer, the deceased woman’s widower, and John Clark, her father.

Neither spoke during the proceedings and both declined to comment afterward.

The woman who was held at gunpoint by McCommons during the home invasion said she and her daughter now live in fear after the robbery. McCommons strong-armed his way into the home, forced her to the ground by her hair and then held her at gunpoint while her 9-year-old daughter ran for help.

“When the doorbell rings at night, she is terrified,” she said. “For a school project her class was asked to describe her one wish. Her’s was to have no more burglaries in the world.”

Carney said McCommons’ long criminal history is characterized by weapons offenses and an abject contempt for the law. He characterized McCommons as spending more than half his life incarcerated and racking up 72 disciplinary violations during his time at the Schenectady County Jail.

“He constantly places his own self-interest above that of society and his history reflects this,” he said recounting McCommons’ lengthy criminal history.

Defense attorney Adam Parisi maintained his position that almost all of the witnesses against McCommons were “bought” by the prosecution. During the three-week trial in October, Parisi claimed the District Attorney’s Office used plea bargains to build a case against his client.

“Almost every single witness had something to gain,” he said Monday.

McCommons, who did not take the stand during the trial, said “lies were manipulated to look like the truth,” and were then used to convict him.

He described the Rugby Road home invasion as being “make-belief” and said his lack of remorse was a product of his innocence.

“To my family, I love them and I didn’t do this crime,” he said. “Either of them.”

Coccoma said McCommons’ ire was misdirected at the people who testified against him. He said they weren’t responsible for his conviction.

“It was the jury impanelled in this case that found you guilty,” he said.

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